Can Calgary Conservatives take back City Hall？ (ft. Sonya Sharp)
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Summary
Sonia Sharp is running for mayor of Calgary, Alberta in the upcoming municipal election. In this episode, she talks about why she decided to run for mayor, why she quit her job as a councillor, and why she thinks it's time for a conservative mayor in Calgary.
Transcript
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Although on the show I tend to talk mostly about federal politics and a little bit about
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provincial politics, I feel like more people really need to take municipal politics seriously.
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And in my province of Alberta, we are having municipal elections this October, and being
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somebody who lives in the city of Calgary, I am going to be putting a lot of focus on
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the Calgary mayoral race, because it's been now several elections in a row where we have
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not been able to elect a conservative in a conservative city.
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And oftentimes it's because a lot of people who run, kind of run softly conservative, somewhat
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conservative, they run on trying to make spending a little bit more efficient, but they don't
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So when I was looking around the slate of people who were putting their names forward, I was
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seeing a lot of the same names popping up, people who came a distant third place, people
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who maybe came second, but have really taken a left turn since the last election.
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And then I was happy to see Sonia Sharp announce that she was running for mayor, and goodness
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actually put some conservative things on her website.
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And so that is why today my special guest is the current councillor for Ward 1 in Calgary,
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I'll just outright say that actually, because this is such a big race, that this whole interview,
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even though I'm a usually very cool person, has made me more nervous than usual, because
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I can feel how actually serious this whole situation has become.
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There are like five or six people running for mayor right now, and truly reading people's
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It doesn't matter if I know somebody is very much on the left or someone's more in the center
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So I guess maybe it'd be good for you to give us your background on, you know, why you ended
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up deciding to go for council in the first place and back in 2021, and then what made
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you make the leap to running for mayor this time?
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So I never intended to work for the city as long as I did.
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My parents were immigrants to Canada, started their own business, and you kind of just work
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And I was part of the family business for many years, but I went to school to be a teacher
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My mom became ill, so my dad asked me to come back and run the family business, which was
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So I didn't pursue my degree in education, but I did go to SAIT to get a diploma in construction
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so that I had some credibility on the job site.
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And I also now husband back in the day, boyfriend, we had service-based industries.
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So I've had about 16 years of business experience on top of the 20 years I would call institutional
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And during my tenure at the city, the city was good to me.
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I started off as a lifeguard, then I went to planning and development.
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I worked the front counter all the way up to the city manager's office until I decided
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And I ran because I felt like I did as much change as I could inside.
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And I had a special, I would call it a special role at the city at the very end.
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I was a leader of the business and economy team.
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We were the ones that navigated the COVID-19 pandemic for the business community.
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We are the reason that patios end up being extended on sidewalks and roads so businesses
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And we really, we were like trailblazers in leading business in not just Alberta, but
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So in 2021, I decided that I wanted to be on the other side.
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I had already quit business at the prior to that.
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I worked really hard to win and became the board one councillor.
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After the big water main break that happened in Calgary, I really decided that it was time
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And I just felt like currently the way council was operating and the current leadership wasn't
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I have formally declared I'm running for mayor.
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And I took this risk to, you know, give it my all to represent Calgarians and, you know,
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really think and focus on an affordable, safe city for everybody and really have people trust
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There's been a lot of things happen this last almost four years, and Calgarians are not
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And I'm going to lead a team of people to make that happen.
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My pet peeve when it comes to politics, especially when it comes to fiscal issues, is when people
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run on the idea, I'm going to make government more efficient.
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And then they don't actually say anything past that.
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And then the reason why I was all in for you as for mayor is because you actually on your
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website and nobody else for some reason will do it, will actually commit to cutting wasteful
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Because I think one of the it was I know it's a microcosm of the issue, but I think a lot
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of people ended up getting very frustrated when they saw Calgary Economic Development and
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Tourism Calgary spend over $3 million just changing the slogan and the logo of the city
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But when we for some reason cannot have restraint for an issue that doesn't actually require
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much of a material change other than changing signage, and we throw $3 million away on consulting
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fees, unless someone's committing to cutting that, I can't really back them.
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And again, I look around with so many people supposedly saying that they're in favor of
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fiscal responsibility, won't even commit to cutting a single dollar of wasteful spending.
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I, myself, with other incumbents running on Communities First, have brought motions forward
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the last budget, like how many budget cycles we've been in three, and we found 170 million
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And I would say, like, you can say I'm running an efficient, effective city.
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It means that you're still delivering the services that Calgarians need every day, and
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you can find efficiencies that wouldn't impact them.
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My advantage of having 20 years inside and now the four years as a politician, I know
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And I will challenge anyone running next to me on it.
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I mean, the current mayor and I have this, we've had debate.
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But that wasn't part of why she ran or what she stands for now.
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But it's really looking at a different way of budgeting and providing oversight to city
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And that can be done because it's been done before.
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So it's getting in there and giving it good governance, having those eight votes.
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Everyone knows it takes eight to get anything done.
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But, you know, when you're sitting there priding yourself saying that you're going to freeze
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taxes, okay, so then how are you going to pay for anything?
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But you can cut taxes and you can cut spending and people will notice it on their, like, bottom
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And so for me, I have prided myself in saying, yeah, I can find it.
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I can do it because I have brought motions forward.
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And it's okay because I will keep going until I know that we can get the eight people that
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are sensible that will support it to, you know, deliver what Calgarians are asking for.
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Well, it's the thing we see in every election cycle is everyone wants to, you know, like,
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People start pointing out to them inefficiencies.
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You know, the Canadian Taxpayer Federation and other taxpayer activist groups come out and
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they find the wasteful spending for the government officials.
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And then they suddenly can't find a good reason to cut the stuff.
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And again, yeah, saying that you're going to freeze taxes, but not willing to cut any
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wasteful spending means that the budget is naturally going to increase just from planned
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And so, and also, I have to be honest, if you're saying that, that means you don't actually
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Just say, and there's people that campaigned on that last time.
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You can cut spending, you can cut taxes, or you can increase taxes.
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If you just say, I'm going to freeze them, you're freezing them then now at the 8% and
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Like, and then how do you prioritize anything, you know, that needs to be done?
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We've, we've put pledges out for, you know, more police officers for the next two years.
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That's a, you have to, you have to look for trade-offs.
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So if you're going to fund more police officers, that's going to be a bunch of operational
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Do you make sure that operational money that's being spent on things no one notices on and
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no one cares about, but when we need those police officers, where's the trade-off?
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And being a civic politician, it's not like government of Alberta and government of Canada.
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The leader makes decisions regardless if you like it.
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And what I love about civic politics is how close it is to the people.
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I, I like rolling out my sleeves and getting work done.
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So when someone challenges me and says, you're never going to find this, watch us find that.
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And it is, it's just a willingness and it's not saying you're getting in there and you're
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There are, there is every good corporation knows and CEO knows there's room to find money.
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When you've seen the surpluses we've seen along the way, where is that money gone?
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And we might not see those surpluses moving forward.
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So you have to be smart and you need to work with good people.
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And I like going back to like the team of candidates on communities first.
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It's such a strong team and we all know it needs to be done.
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We've committed to repealing brand for rezoning.
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We all bring different, like I would say aspects to politics that like from each other, some
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of us have different experiences, but the biggest thing that we also have in common is we're
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It's just, let's deliver what Calgarians are asking.
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And then in the description of this video below, as well as pinned to the top comments, I will
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be leaving for any of you in Calgary, links to Sonia's website, if you want a lawn sign
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But I want to shift over to public safety in just a second here.
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But I want to just do make a quick last point on taxes as well.
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One, it's kind of funny that we're having a bunch of people also pledge to hiring police
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officers when some of the people running for mayor in the race voted to defund the police.
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And I can already hear people saying, no, they didn't vote to defund it because other
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people on council didn't vote to defund the police.
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So it kind of gives lie to the idea that the people who did do it didn't actually do
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But when it comes to tax rates as well, there is a difference between property tax rates
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and the actual assessed value of your property.
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Not only has the current council, who is being led by a mayor who pledged to freeze taxes,
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raised rates, but they've also aggressively reevaluated the values of people's homes in
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order to also get more out of it, even if their rates stayed the same.
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They know that housing prices have been skyrocketing well ahead of every single other good in the
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So even if they say, I'm going to freeze taxes and not touch them, again, if you're
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not cutting wasteful spending, and you're not trying to potentially move towards actually
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cutting the rate, you will still be paying more taxes anyways, because they'll say your
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I was going to say, you bring such a great point, and I think people running can learn
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Hopefully, and usually I always get like, I get very aggressively ignored.
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With public safety, I guess we can move on to that issue, because as, and this is the
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thing, I'm almost agnostic when it comes to the issue of the green line.
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The problem whenever I hear about the issue is that the current council, the current mayor's
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office does not actually care enough about public safety, that building a new train line
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down into South Calgary is basically just bringing a system to move crime around the
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Without actually putting police officers on the transit system itself, without actually
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hiring more police officers and having the budget available to do it, you can't actually
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put forward something like the green line, you can't actually do a lot of what you're
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going to say without increasing the per capita amount of police officers on the streets.
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Yeah, so I've lived by a motto for a long time, and it was also when I was in administration,
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if you don't have a safe city, it is hard to deliver a lot of other things.
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And so one of our pillars and part of my platform is public safety and fundamental, sorry,
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it's supposed to be its fundamental responsibility of ours, so police, fire, bylaw, police, peace
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And we need further investments, not just in the safety of our transit, but we also need
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I've worked downtown for a really long time, saw how things have shifted on Stephen Avenue
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And we really need to take a compassionate approach to dealing with a social disorder
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That means we have to make sure we are supporting our provincial counterparts in what sort of
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mechanisms they can put in place to support change if we're looking for it.
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The other big thing is pledging the amount of police officers over the next two years gives
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us time to budget and gives us time to look at where we can find that money and working
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They report to commission and building that relationship, having a good commission.
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There are great members of commission on there now.
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And the current police chief has made some incredible moves on what she believes needs
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So I think we are really starting to move things forward in that having that difficult conversation
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And it's OK to find mechanisms to support people because they're a human being.
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And we need to think about how we do this strategically so that every one of those folks that walk downtown
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And even the folks that decide they know that they're OK living downtown, they're OK not being housed.
00:16:00.640
And so for me, I've been a big proponent of safety.
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Businesses don't have to spend more money on barricading their windows, cleaning up sidewalks,
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You think about, you know, an ice cream shop now has to add an extra 25, 50 cents to an ice cream
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because they need security or they need to put bars on windows.
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You know, I talk to Home Depots around the city.
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Which ones are more affected by issues along the train line and which ones aren't?
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We need to talk about putting uniforms on sea trains.
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And, you know, like you don't get these opportunities a lot to have these conversations like you and
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But I mean, obviously, I have I'm very passionate about this work and I'm very passionate about
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You should pride yourself on a city that's clean and safe.
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And that's why I built a team, because you think about seven priorities that we want to
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There are opportunities to give them a pillar or a mandate and say, hey, go ahead and work
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All the door knocking that I've been doing in different wards, the common things of
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Infrastructure comes up, obviously, with like our roads and our pipes.
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But safety has been one of those things that I don't think I leave a community and say,
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And the three major areas of crime across Canada that have been spiking over time, and that's
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because of really bad bail reforms that have been made on the federal level.
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But the three major areas are violent crime, retail theft and drug crime.
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I worked at a liquor store along the C train line.
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And the one thing that was always frustrating was not the police's fault.
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It's the way the mayor's office is organizing the police.
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And when you call the police after you get robbed, they come to your store first.
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They get the description of a guy who already jumped on the C train and left.
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And so even putting police officers on the C train would probably slash retail theft right
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And to make a point that you were kind of making is that the thing is that crime, in fact,
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If poverty does not drive crime, crime is what causes an area to become impoverished.
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Because businesses don't set up, growth slows down, and the jobs go away.
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And it makes it more difficult for people to find a job in their own area without having
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Wasn't it also the mayor's office who criticized Premier Smith for putting sheriffs on the C train
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Like, the premier does the mayor's job for her.
00:19:02.240
And then Gondek comes out to criticize her that it, like, you know, looks bad to have sheriffs
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in the city doing the job that the mayor doesn't want done.
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The biggest thing what I will say is moving forward for, you know, myself is intergovernment
00:19:19.320
So for this example is, you know, you're talking about police sheriffs, which, you know, come
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Having a good relationship with that leader is critical.
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Not fighting on Twitter, not cutting each other down in a Herald article, collaboration with
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other orders of government are going to drive the things we need to deliver.
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And so if we're making bold moves that involves the province, they're going to want to know
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And that's what I'm looking for as I, you know, go through all this and, you know, hopefully
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The other piece to this is they're going to look at us and say, we will support you.
00:20:01.820
And so going back to the province and saying, well, we've been able to fund, you know, up
00:20:09.600
Now we know we know we need this from, you know, the province of Alberta.
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We, of course, need to advocate for the way the justice system works.
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And so we're not giving our officers the tools they need to put bad guys in the jail, like
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And if you victimize somebody, I'm sorry, you should go to prison.
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Like, I know a lot of people probably will criticize, like, some of the way I'm talking.
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You cannot live in a city that you don't feel safe.
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I want them to be able to, you know, do the things I did as a teenager in Calgary and,
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I took the train when I was younger from, you know, where I lived to, you know, downtown
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and do things with my friends and come back home late at night.
00:21:08.260
But the thing is, is that you really need to, you know, be bold, make decisions and know
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you're doing it for the greater good of the city.
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And I've had those conversations with the premier and said, you know, I'm going to look for your
00:21:28.360
And to go to another thing that you're talking about, in the sense that you mentioned advocating
00:21:35.480
for laws to be changed on the federal level when it comes to things like bail reform, repealing
00:21:44.620
It wasn't the one that was just passed about major projects.
00:21:47.140
It was a previous version, which actually lowered the penalties for people who are caught
00:21:54.160
Not like the ones on the ban list that the liberal government on federal level come up with.
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These are just literally smuggled in guns that gang members will get lower sentences for being
00:22:04.680
That's great for a city official to be doing, advocating for those changes to be made.
00:22:09.220
With the current administration, you will get them trying to wade into the politics of another
00:22:14.660
province on, like, a social issue, or they won't show up to a menorah lighting because I guess
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that's not, like, politically correct to do at the moment.
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And, like, that's always the thing that you always think of whenever you see that the city
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spent $3 million, not even changing the signage, like you said, just doing, just changing the
00:22:39.940
And it's like, how many police officers can you hire for all those consulting fees?
00:22:47.580
Well, you probably have the actual stat off the top of your head.
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It will be, how much of Calgary's roads are considered good quality?
00:23:07.540
I think it was like 28% of Calgary's roads are considered good quality.
00:23:15.520
But, I mean, you can't quote me on that one because that one I wasn't prepared for.
00:23:18.420
So, I mean, I usually keep a knowledge of numbers in my head.
00:23:23.020
The fact that we may be cobbling around whether 20% or 30% of the roads are drivable.
00:23:29.320
Let's just say it's under 50 and that is not a good stat.
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Anything that you want to deliver should be better than 50%.
00:23:41.680
And so what you're really talking about is getting back to the basics.
00:23:44.720
And, you know, I think what's important is, you know, people talk about city politics
00:23:53.240
Your job is to make sure potholes are filled, garbage is picked up, you're, you know, coming
00:23:58.540
up with policy for infrastructure and, you know, planning and all, you know, all of that.
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I think, you know, it's really important to listen, not lecture with your constituents
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I'm running in this seat and I'm here to serve every single person, every human, whatever
00:24:19.140
flag you fly under, whatever belief you may have.
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I am just here to be an elected official and a mayor to serve you.
00:24:29.520
And that's why I do believe a lot of elected officials that in this term are quitting.
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It's unheard of that people just after one term leaving.
00:24:39.240
I couldn't have imagined while I was working in administration and someone coming to the
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counter when I was doing permits and saying, I'm sorry, I can't serve you because we don't
00:24:51.680
Or when I was a lifeguard and jumping in the water to save a child because, you know, we
00:24:59.100
You're a public servant and that is why you chose to run and that is why I choose to serve
00:25:08.540
Those are saved for dinner table conversations with my family and, you know, and things like
00:25:14.620
Like, this is not what the horseshoe is all about and it shouldn't be and that needs
00:25:19.220
And that is the big change we're hearing at the doors.
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I, you know, I pride myself on being raised by really good parents and we have a big family
00:25:27.180
and I think that a lot of my values and instilled in me come from my mom and dad who came here
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as immigrants and knew the struggles they had in Europe, but then came to Canada and
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had those struggles and wanted a good life for their children.
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And I, you know, I would say my parents work really hard to support us.
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And I know that I work really hard with, you know, to support my family and my children.
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And I resonate with people when they tell me, you know, I'm a child of immigrants too.
00:25:59.540
And like, we talk about certain things and how our families and it's just about being
00:26:02.980
a public servant and serving basic quality life things like clean water, snow clearing,
00:26:09.360
garbage pickup, safety, you know, things like that.
00:26:13.620
If people don't want to go to celebrations because they're not a belief of a certain religion,
00:26:19.680
You know, that's not, you are here as elected official to serve and you're serving everybody.
00:26:25.900
If somebody, if there's a difference between someone personally attacking you and all that,
00:26:30.440
Like we have to be very careful with that because politics has changed.
00:26:33.840
But at the end of the day, I should be able to walk down the street with my family,
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my friends and people to walk by and just say, you know, thanks for serving.
00:26:42.220
We not always get along or we not always believe or agree with the votes that,
00:26:47.080
you know, an elected official might have or give, and that's okay.
00:26:51.320
But defend your why and just be a human being next to them.
00:27:00.400
And actually, this is probably one I should have probably front loaded a little bit,
00:27:05.140
This is the quality of show people expect from me, just random stuff.
00:27:10.960
So the, I was going to ask, on the issue of blanket rezoning, naturally, I don't think anyone
00:27:21.020
Obviously, certain areas of the city may need some densification, certain others, really just
00:27:25.900
let each community figure out what it wants to be.
00:27:28.860
But how was it that it still was able to get eight votes in order to pass the blanket rezoning
00:27:37.700
measures, like, was there just legitimately just a disconnect, some, like, ideological
00:27:43.160
disconnect between the eight counselors who voted for that and those who were, like, and
00:27:56.820
You could literally see in the stats of who chose to speak against blanket rezoning that
00:28:01.700
it was going to be a large portion of the city.
00:28:03.860
Is that possibly why so many people are not going to be running for re-election?
00:28:08.760
And also, it's like, how did they end up kind of justifying that this was a good decision
00:28:13.540
to make after so many people had said that, you know, they weren't even maybe fully opposed
00:28:22.040
Yeah, so that's a loaded question you just gave me.
00:28:25.700
But what I'll say is, there was a couple things about the rezoning vote that had occurred.
00:28:33.900
First of all, when it occurred the very first time that it failed, there was a reconsideration
00:28:39.860
Many of us believed in the housing strategy, believed in some of those principles, and did
00:28:43.660
not believe that blanket rezoning should be an omnibus approval through the strategy.
00:28:47.840
So we got it pulled out, re-voted, all of that.
00:28:51.380
So fast forward to the public hearing, where we had almost 800 people show up, and over
00:29:05.080
And I believe that not only did the federal money dangling in front of everybody give them
00:29:12.780
no reason to want to vote for it, but they just didn't care.
00:29:18.260
I just felt like, what a waste of a public hearing.
00:29:26.340
I remember sitting there, and I listened to every single person speak.
00:29:31.160
I even had people come to me later and said, you know, you turned over and looked me in
00:29:35.380
And I said, yeah, it's my job, is there to listen.
00:29:38.000
The thing about blanket rezoning is it's not working, and they don't want to admit it.
00:29:42.300
One in five development permits now are being appealed.
00:29:49.100
And that's their right, and they will continue to do it.
00:29:52.020
Businesses now are, construction businesses are bogged down in bureaucratic red tape.
00:29:58.720
You know, developers can see that this is not really probably the best idea.
00:30:04.820
But the solution here is we've committed to repealing it, reinstating what was, so people
00:30:09.100
can speak to those permits or respectable bond uses in their community and reform the planning
00:30:14.600
So, you know, it was, it's kind of, you know, it's funny and not funny at the same time,
00:30:19.300
because it's a lot of, it was a lot of work, not only for council, but administration.
00:30:23.540
And now I know everyone's like, well, you're going to go in and repeal it.
00:30:25.880
Well, you'll have to repeal it based on how you can repeal it, based on the day of, not
00:30:30.900
But when I brought a motion forward in 2023 to stop the rezoning, and it didn't even make
00:30:41.460
It's, that was, you can tell it was, they already knew how they were voting.
00:30:45.500
Then Councillor McLean brings a plebiscite, again, fails.
00:30:51.980
So they're like, oh, we just, we need to hear the public opinion.
00:31:03.820
Those of them that are running, and those of candidates that are running that weren't
00:31:12.240
So, you know, and Communities First has committed, I committed to repealing it.
00:31:18.140
We will win, and it'll be gone, and it'll be reformed the way it needs to be done, and
00:31:22.300
proper planning process, and putting mechanisms in where you can cut red tape internally, and
00:31:29.120
So they clearly said, hey, Calgarians, you're the problem.
00:31:33.160
So we're going to remove the public hearing portion of it.
00:31:36.280
The citizens that elect you are never the problem.
00:31:41.140
And just as a closing comment from myself, too, I always found the whole thing kind of
00:31:46.200
You have people who advocate for the blank rezoning, saying, oh, it's going to make housing
00:31:51.580
What the city is doing is it doesn't want to speed up the normal approval process.
00:31:55.500
So it effectively is attempting to bribe developers saying, we're still, it's still going to be
00:31:59.980
very difficult to get approval to build something.
00:32:02.000
But at least you get to build a triplex on a single lot rather than just a single family
00:32:07.420
But as the home buyer, you're not getting a cheaper house.
00:32:11.780
You're getting less house for way more per square foot.
00:32:15.860
So and the thing is, when you're seeing some of these properties pop up, which is some
00:32:19.240
of them are great starter homes for like, you know, like a single individual or a couple.
00:32:23.860
But when it's only 500 square feet, and that's becoming more and more housing in different
00:32:28.520
communities, you're going to have a really bad demographic problem in the future.
00:32:35.020
But the fundamental thing is that the city is basically trying to say that we have made
00:32:38.840
housing cheaper by giving you less house for less money.
00:32:42.020
But the square footage is actually going up in price.
00:32:44.800
But but thanks for coming on to the show, Sonia.
00:32:49.180
Is there anything that you want to plug on the way out of this?
00:32:53.740
I would just implore everybody to just, you know, of course, October 20th is election.
00:33:04.220
Please get to know me more and more as the weeks come near to those dates and get to know
00:33:09.340
the community's first candidates that are running in your ward.
00:33:11.800
We are a strong group of people that are ready to make the change you are asking for.
00:33:19.720
If you really believe in a candidate, whether it's for council, school board, or mayor, give
00:33:28.480
Because it's great to advocate online for what you want.
00:33:31.560
But oftentimes you're just talking to the same hundred people.
00:33:34.580
And it's always good to actually go out and talk to neighbors.
00:33:37.040
Because, you know, if you really believe in something, go and reason with other people
00:33:44.220
So thank you for, you know, those of you that already got a lawn sign.
00:33:48.740
Let us know if you want one and the team will come out and deliver it.